


The Gayest (Not Chickening Out)

by TheTheoryOfDreaming



Series: Str(g)ay Chicken [3]
Category: Stray Kids (Band)
Genre: Idiots in Love, M/M, Post-Canon, Shock value, Talk about the future, no beta we die like men, romancy stuff, they're out of their contracts so guess what...
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-03
Updated: 2021-01-03
Packaged: 2021-03-13 23:13:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,560
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28536450
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheTheoryOfDreaming/pseuds/TheTheoryOfDreaming
Summary: After service and idol life is a new beginning and Minho and Chan tackle it like they've tackled everything: together
Relationships: Bang Chan/Lee Minho | Lee Know
Series: Str(g)ay Chicken [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2032231
Comments: 12
Kudos: 67





	The Gayest (Not Chickening Out)

**Author's Note:**

> I'm honestly not sure if Chan and Felix would have to serve but for the sake of this I had them serve.
> 
> According to @PrttyBbyBun, my soulmate, their manager is called Jung Han. If you google that name you will find an engineer. I went with Jung Han anyway.
> 
> This is the last part, so enjoy! And I'll get cracking with that last chapter of Beta off with you [insert shameless self-promo here] because I haven't forgotten and it will be posted next, I promise

#

Time moves on, people grow up, things change. 

As the oldest Chan was obviously the first to enlist, Minho followed a few months later. That was the hardest part for them, being away from their friends and members and each other. The other members entered their service pretty soon too since they were all relatively close in age. 

Chan spent a lot of time sleeping after he returned from his service and did all of the things he hadn’t been able to do so far. He visited his parents, his old friends and other people he hadn’t seen in for-fucking-ever because first he had been swamped with work as an idol and then he had been serving which hadn’t left a lot of time to keep up with people he knew. All in all it was a very relaxing time, even though he missed Minho like crazy.

“Hey man! It’s been forever!” Sean, the only friend Chan had stayed in contact with the whole time after leaving Australia, greeted Chan with a hug. “Come in, come in. Sarah’s not here yet, she’s picking up the kids from a birthday party, but we’ll find something to do, won’t we?”

And they did. They talked about what had happened in their lives and what they were doing and Chan couldn’t help but feel inexperienced, especially when Sarah showed up with her and Sean’s energetic twin sons. Chan was thirty now, but he had never experienced what would be considered a normal life. Sure, he had lived his dream which was a huge accomplishment, but at the same time… he had been living in a bubble. A lot of things had been taken care of by managers. What he did during the day, what he ate, where he slept, everything had always been dictated, even in the military. Especially in the military. Chan was thirty, old enough for his own family with kids and everything, but he felt as naive as a high schooler who had just graduated yesterday.

It became even more apparent, the feeling even stronger, when Chan was done with his visiting rounds and returned to Korea. He had no place to go really. The dorm that he had always called his home was already occupied by another group. He had no apartment, no house, no _place_. Chan was out of place, life had moved on without him while he had spent his youth in the Idol bubble. He rented a room in a hotel, at least his time as an idol had supplied him with more money than he’d ever need, and called his old therapist. He knew that he needed to get started on sorting his life out and that he’d need help for that. But apart from therapy… there wasn’t much to do. Chan was so used to using any snippet of spare time to either nap or squeeze in more work but now he had days and weeks and months with no schedule, and he didn’t know what to do with it. It slowly drove him crazy so he went on walks around the city for hours and hours, including an impulse visit to a jewellery store. He worked out and he read a lot of books he had always wanted to read but had never had the time to.

And he waited.

Minho returned from his service in the middle of the night, Chan already in his pajamas, when the hotel phone rang.

_“Sorry to disturb you, sir, there’s a man here who wants to see you. I told him to come back tomorrow morning but he’s very insistent.”_

There was some mumbling that Chan couldn’t understand before the receptionist spoke again.

_“He says his name is Lee Minho? Do you know this man?”_

“Yes.” Chan cleared his dry throat. “Yes, I know him. Please send him up.”

Chan waited with baited breath until the knock on his door and then tore it open with enough force to almost lift it out of its hinges.

“Min.”

“Hi.” Minho looked tired, bone tired, but he smiled and it felt so good to see him again after two years. Chan realized that his feelings hadn’t budged, if anything they had been amplified during the long time they hadn’t seen each other. 

Minho stepped over the threshold, dropped his bag and opened his arms. He didn’t need to ask twice.

Chan threw himself against Minho, knocking them both into the wall. Minho laughed but his arms wrapped themselves securely around Chan’s waist and Chan all but melted into the familiar embrace.

“I’ve got you, baby. It’s okay.” Only when Minho mumbled these soft words into Chan’s hair did Chan notice that he was shaking and close to tears.

“You’re back. You’re back. Min, I missed you so fucking much.”

“I missed you too.” Minho ran a hand through Chan’s hair. “Come on, let’s close that door and take a shower and sleep, okay? I’m exhausted, we can still talk in the morning. For now I just want you to hold me while I sleep.”

Chan lifted his head out of the crook of Minho’s neck. “Yeah. I can do that.”

Minho’s smile was so blindingly beautiful that Chan wanted to instinctively close his eyes but also leave them wide open as to not miss it.

Chan closed the door while Minho got the shower started and even though Chan had showered earlier already he joined Minho under the hot spray, unable to stay apart for longer than a minute.

Minho sighed as Chan rubbed shampoo into his scalp, Minho’s hair still shorter than usual from the last buzz cut. He sank against Chan’s chest which made washing the shampoo a bit difficult but Chan wasn’t going to complain.

“Close your eyes so I won’t get soap into them,” Chan warned as he grabbed the detachable shower head.

“You’re bold to assume I had them open in the first place,” Minho mumbled against Chan’s skin and Chan smiled. Minho hadn’t changed one bit.

When the hot water left their skin pink they stepped out of the shower and Chan wrapped a towel around his own waist before helping to dry Minho.

Minho blearily blinked at him when Chan toweled his hair. “I love you, Channie.”

“I love you too.” Chan pressed a kiss to Minho’s lips that were slow and lazy from exhaustion before returning to his task of getting them dry.

Once he deemed them dry enough he led Minho to the bed where Minho unceremoniously dropped into the pillows. Chan switched off the lights and crawled under the covers next to Minho who immediately latched onto him to cuddle. Minho was out in seconds, and Chan followed closely. Now that he wasn’t so alone and cold in his bed anymore he slept better than he had in months.

When he woke up in the morning, in those precious seconds between asleep and awake, Chan thought that it might just have been a dream. But when consciousness fully returned Minho was still in his arms and Chan couldn’t stop the giddy smile spreading over his face (though let’s be honest, he didn’t even try).

Minho mumbled in his sleep but didn’t wake up when Chan pulled him closer and Chan was content to just watch him sleep. Minho’s relaxed face was smooth but Chan knew that he had little crinkles around his eyes when he smiled and it was Chan’s favourite thing. Minho had aged since that one game of gay chicken going completely wrong (or right, depending on your point of view), they all had. Especially during the last two years Minho’s face had matured more than ever. During his idol times stylists and make-up artists had done their best to make him look like he was still twenty when he was nearing thirty. During his service Minho had been without all of this and it showed. He had lost his last bits of baby fat that the company had worked so hard on preserving, making his face less round and more angular, features more pronounced. It was still Minho though, and Chan was the happiest he had been in a while.

Of course he couldn’t keep his hands to himself for long and had to touch Minho. He ran his fingertips over Minho’s face, through his hair, his touch as soft as butterfly wings. He traced Minho’s eyebrows, his nose, his jaw and his soft lips. Chan was so completely lost in the sensation that for a while he didn’t even notice that Minho’s eyes had fluttered open. 

“Morning beautiful.” 

Even after all those years of complimenting each other Minho still knew how to make Chan blush.

“Morning. Did you sleep well?”

Minho stretched and yawned before snuggling closer to Chan again. “I was so tired I had no choice but to sleep well.”

Chan smiled and stuck his nose into Minho’s hair, fluffy from sleep. “I’m glad you’re back.”

“Oh trust me, I am too. I swear this drill sergeant was trying to kill me.”

“From my experience I can tell you that they’re all like this.”

“No but like… me specifically. Never the others, just me.”

“From my experience with _you_ I remember you saying this about every single one of our choreos ever. And then you ended up acing them anyway.”

Minho grumbled and hid his face in Chan’s chest and Chan knew that this was Minho’s way of admitting defeat.

“But I’m also glad to be back with you, not just because of the drill sergeant.” Minho’s voice was muffled by Chan’s shirt but Chan heard him anyway and drew tiny patterns on the part of skin that was peeking out under Minho’s shirt in response.

They stayed exactly like that and Chan was almost nodding off again when Minho sat up.

“I’m hungry and I haven’t had greasy fast food in forever so let’s get some.”

“Will room service do? I don’t wanna share you with anyone yet.”

“That was gross.” Minho sent Chan a calculating look. “But fine. You’re lucky I love you.”

Chan grinned. “I love you too.” He tackled Minho to the mattress and tickled him until Minho was wheezing.

“Honestly, sometimes I don’t know why I put up with you.” And despite his words Minho pulled Chan into a deep kiss. It’s safe to say that he was distracted from food for the next hour.

“Now we gotta shower before we get food.”

Minho propped his chin up on Chan’s chest. Sweat was drying on their skin.

Chan laughed, still a bit breathless. “Is that all you have to say after we had sex?”

“Oh Channie.” Minho smirked. “I have a lot more to say and even more things to do with my mouth…” 

Chan groaned.

“... but as fun and satisfying that would be, it would delay my breakfast that is already basically lunch at this point even further.” 

Chan laughed out loud. He had missed Minho, really missed him. 

“So.” Minho sat up and reached for the hotel phone on the nightstand. “You can go shower or whatever and I’ll order food. Anything specific you want?”

“As long as I have you I have everything I could ever want.”

Minho rolled his eyes and didn’t dignify him with an answer but Chan still noticed the blush dusting Minho’s cheeks.

Half an hour later they sat in bed, freshly showered and with food spread out over the blanket. Minho had gone all out, claiming to be hungry enough to eat a horse. 

“So what do you want to do? Now that we’re both back?”

Minho slowly lowered his chopsticks, an unreadable expression on his face. “I don’t even know. But I now do understand what my non-idol friends meant when they said that the future is scary a few years ago. I always thought I understood…” He played with his chopsticks. “But now… this is different.”

“Yeah.” Chan nodded. “You’re actually quick to pick up on this, it took me a few weeks to realize.”

Minho smiled distractedly, his mind somewhere else. “I don’t know what I want to do yet, I don’t know what the other members want.” They stayed silent for a while, Chan didn’t want to interrupt Minho’s train of thought.

He had just taken another bite when Minho scrambled and frantically grabbed Chan’s arm. “Please don’t tell me you’ll leave me. I couldn’t… Please don’t leave me.”

Chan’s eyes widened and he hurried to swallow and put the plate to the side before reaching out to pull Minho in his lap.

“No, Min, baby, no! I won’t leave you. I’m right here, not going anywhere.” Minho relaxed in Chan’s arms and hid his face at Chan’s shoulder. Chan felt tears wetting his collarbone and knew that Minho’s emotions were boiling over. Minho always pretended to be unbothered but after knowing him and living with him and dating him for years Chan knew what was under Minho’s facade and understood that Minho’s tears were the culmination of everything he had bottled up. 

They sat there for a while, Chan softly swaying side to side with Minho in his arms, humming under his breath and just being the shoulder to cry on Minho needed.

“Sorry.” Minho pulled back and wiped at his eyes, gratefully accepting the tissue Chan was handing him.

“Don’t be. It’s overwhelming, I’ve been there. I just have the advantage of having dealt with it longer than you at this point.” Minho blew his nose. “And you never have to be scared of me leaving you, Min. That’s the last thing I’d ever want to do.”

Minho smiled weakly as he tossed the tissue. 

“In fact…” Chan leaned over the mattress to grab something from the nightstand drawer. “I want to stay with you for the rest of our lives. Lee Minho, would you do me the biggest honour possible and become my husband?” He popped open the velvet box he had purchased a few weeks ago.

Minho just stared for a second, his mouth opening and closing, before he squeaked and hit Chan in the chest. “You asshole, you’ll just make me cry again! Oh my god, your audacity… I can’t believe you, really, of course I’ll marry you, you don’t even have to ask!” He hugged Chan tightly, continuing to rant into the skin of Chan’s neck, something with “stupid” and “why do I love this idiot”. Chan smiled widely and hugged Minho back, mindful of the box in his hand. A warm, floaty feeling expanded in his chest.

Minho pulled back and wiped at his eyes again before his glance fell onto the box. “Fuck, you got me a ring. You really went out and got me a ring, I can’t _believe_ you.”

That put a slight damper on Chan’s mood and he nervously fiddled with the box. “I… I could get you another one if you don’t like it, or you don’t have to wear one at all if you don’t want to, I just thought…”

Minho thrust out his hand. “Of _course_ I’m going to wear it. Please, put it on me.”

Chan bit his lip to unsuccessfully keep his smile back as he carefully took Minho’s hand in his. His own fingers were shaking. He picked the ring out of its velvety cushion and slipped it onto Minho’s ringfinger. It fit perfectly. Chan pressed a kiss to each of Minho’s fingertips and the back of his hand.

“Thank you. Thank you so much for agreeing.”

“You’re an idiot.” Minho admired the ring on his finger. 

“But your idiot.” Chan scooted closer and kissed Minho’s shoulder.

“Lucky me.” It wasn’t sarcastic. It was honest. Minho pressed his lips to Chan’s for a second before he went back to looking at his ring. 

“I love it, it looks great, and I’m impressed that it fits so well.”

Chan snorted. “Love, our seven-year anniversary is coming up and we’ve been idols together. I know your taste as well as your ring size.”

“Oh, shut up.” Quieter, Minho added. “Thank you. I love you.” 

Chan smiled.

They stayed in bed all day, making out, talking about this and that and chuckling as they sent a photo of Minho’s ring to the members’ group chat and watched the chaos unfold without giving any explanation. 

In the end they were snuggled under a blanket together, leaning against the headboard.

“What do we do now?” Minho stared into space.

“We have a lot of things to do and a lot of things we can do.” Chan played with Minho’s fingers. “We have to pick out a date, decide on a ceremony, plan everything… and I don’t know about you but I’d personally like to tell my parents.”

“Oh god.” Minho dropped his head back. “My parents. They’re going to kill me.”

“Min, I thought they knew you were dating a man? Don’t tell me they’re homophobic, they never seemed to be though?”

They hadn’t exactly been able to tell a lot of people that they were dating each other. The members obviously knew, and JYP himself but apart from these few choice people they had kept it from everyone, including family and friends. Only after their five year anniversary had they told their families that they were dating someone at all.

“What? No, no, it’s fine, she’s just going to be mad that she never met my boyfriend before and I don’t even know what she’s going to say when I tell her it’s you who she _has_ met.”

“Oh, okay.” Chan breathed a sigh of relief.

“As if.” Minho grinned. “I’m an only child, they have me or nothing at all so chances are they’ll keep me no matter the shit I pull.”

Chan huffed into Minho’s ear, drawing a squawk from him.

“Ew, stop it! Go away, I hate you.”

“The ring on your finger says otherwise.” Chan repeated his action and Minho weakly hit his chest. 

“You’re going to hold this against me for the rest of our lives, won’t you?”

“Maybe.” Chan grinned and Minho resigned to his fate with a sigh.

“But if we tell our parents… which we obviously will… who are we going to tell exactly?”

“That’s a good question. Our contracts are over and if we choose to re-sign with the company I’m sure we could negotiate something…”

“So you wanna go public?”

Chan pulled a face. “Not necessarily, I don’t feel like giving statements. But I’d just stop hiding it? Not pretend anymore? And we could finally tell our friends, Sean has been bugging me for ages about who I’m seeing, not even speaking of Bambam…”

Minho hummed and leaned his head against Chan’s shoulder. “Not hiding anymore… yeah, I’d like that.”

  
  


Minho cried again on the phone with his parents and Chan also sniffled as he told his family. 

_“At least I’ve already met him,”_ Chan’s mother murmured, grumbly because she would have liked to get to know Minho as Chan’s boyfriend before they got engaged but it was what it was.

“Sorry, Ma.”

_“It’s okay, Chris, don’t worry. I know the circumstances demanded it. I completely understand that you had to keep it a secret and I don’t blame you but I’ll still keep complaining.”_

Chan laughed. “I love you, Ma.”

_“I love you too, son. And tell your fiancé I said hi. God, I can’t believe it, my little boy is getting married.”_

They started to not hide anymore right the day after. Minho still wanted his greasy fast food and the weather was nice so they decided to walk to the nearest fast food place. Out of habit Chan let go of Minho’s hand as soon as they left the room but as soon as he remembered he interlocked their fingers again. Minho threw him a smile and Chan _knew_ that the ring was twinkling on Minho’s other hand. 

Nobody bothered them on their walk. Since most of them were serving at the moment Stray Kids were mostly off the radar and they benefited greatly.

The cashier selling them their burgers was a stressed college kid who kept glancing at her co-worker and didn’t spare them a glance and when they were tucked away in their booth they were out of sight anyway.

“Oh god.” Minho let out an orgasmic moan after his first bite. “I missed this so much. Chan, dear, I’ve changed my mind, I’ll marry this burger instead.”

Chan suppressed his laughter and acted hurt. “What does the burger have that I don’t have?”

“Cheese,” Minho deadpanned and Chan couldn’t hold back anymore, he burst out laughing.

“Baby, I’ll buy you all the cheese you want.”

Minho pondered for a second before relenting. “Okay, fine, I’ll still marry you.”

Later that day they paid their former manager a visit. Han was overjoyed to see them, hugging them both and asking them how they were. 

“Oh, we’re great, how are you? Are the new groups already giving you gray hair?”

Han huffed. “No, you were the worst ones. The newbies are a walk in the park compared to you.” But his eyes were twinkling and they knew he was just joking. “Here, have a seat… Wait, I’ll get my chair back, Chaeyoung stole it the other day.”

Indeed there was only one visitor’s chair in front of Han’s desk instead of the usual two.

“No problem, hyung.” Minho held Han back by his sleeve. “We’ll make do.” And he sat on Chan’s lap.

They chatted for a while to catch up until Chan brought up the topic of their future occupations.

“I don’t know what Min’s going to do for now but we kind of want to wait for the other members to return and their input and opinions before we make further plans and I wondered if I could produce some songs for you?”

Han’s jaw dropped at Chan’s suggestion. “Like… yes? Absolutely? We have a new group debuting soon and their title track is all set but we’re still lacking in the b-side department.”

“Okay, nice. Will you send me an email with the details?” 

“Sure, sure. Jesus, Chan, you’re kind of saving my ass right now.”

“But don’t overwork yourself with that,” Minho cut into the conversation.

Chan smiled at him. “Of course not, baby.”

“Good.” Minho lifted a hand, the hand with the ring specifically, and placed it on Chan’s cheek as he kissed him.

Chan laughed internally. He knew exactly what Minho was doing, he was shocking their hyung who hadn’t been aware of their relationship either, so Chan decided to give Han a show. He pulled Minho closer and deepened the kiss. Minho went with it with a high keening noise.

They broke apart and looked back at Han who looked even more floored than he had after Chan’s offer to produce a few songs.

“Oh right, we never told you.” Minho pretended it had slipped his mind.

Han just gawked. “You… right there… kiss… what?”

“We’ve been dating for close to seven years, hyung.”

“And yesterday Channie proposed to me, look!” Minho held out his hand to proudly show off his ring, with no regard to the fact that Han wasn’t really processing anything at the moment. Han stared into space for a solid thirty minutes and Chan was beginning to get worried, wondering if he should get his hyung medical help, when Han moved again.

“Oh my fucking god, no wonder. This explains a lot. All of you Stray Kids were close to each other, but you two… you were always a special case. I just had no idea that… Jesus.”

“I hope you have no problem with the fact that we’re both men.” Minho looked calm but Chan knew that he was ready to murder Han if the answer was the wrong one.

“Huh? Oh, no, no. It’s not for me but if it makes you happy go for it.” Minho relaxed. 

“Holy Christ.” Han leaned back. “You two are some really fucking good actors.” He pointed at them both. “We worked so closely together and I never suspected a thing.”

“That was the point, really.”

“Did anyone know?”

“Well, the members did because we could hardly have hidden it from them.” Chan shuffled Minho around on his lap so Minho’s bones weren’t digging into Chan’s thighs as uncomfortably. “And PD-nim. Had anything come out he would have helped us handle it. Other than that family and friends only knew that we were dating, just not who we were dating. They of course kept quiet about it.”

“Impressive, very impressive.” Han was still processing as he tapped his fingers together. “Well, life holds surprises for all of us, doesn’t it? Minho, what will you be doing until the other rascals return?”

“I don’t quite know yet, I only returned yesterday. But I want to stay with my family for a while. Will you come with me?” He turned to Chan. 

“If they can stand me in the house, sure.”

“I’ll make them.”

“Spoiled single child.” Chan kissed Minho’s nose.

“You two fit together so well, I can’t believe it.” Han watched them fondly.

True to Minho’s word they spent a few weeks with Minho’s parents before renting an apartment where Chan worked on songs and Minho uploaded a few dance covers. They weren’t subtle in the slightest, Chan was visible in the background of a few of Minho’s videos and even joined the dance in one. 

The other members returned from their service one by one but Stray Kids was no more. They kept in contact but everyone found their own jobs. The company was all too happy to keep Chan as a producer and Minho became a freelance choreographer. Changbin started a solo career as technically still an idol but he drew more attention from the underground scene. Hyunjin took a few modelling contracts but didn’t want to settle on a career just yet while Jisung joined the company again, producing with Chan and sometimes Changbin but he mostly worked as a vocal coach. Felix fulfilled his dream of working with kids and started teaching English in a middle school. Seungmin continued his career as an MC on many different shows and eventually moderated the MAMAs. Jeongin became an actor and Chan had no problem to admit that he had cried the first time he had seen Jeongin walking down the red carpet at a premiere with his signature blinding smile.

And of course, not that they had expected it any differently, their relationship came out. It created quite the buzz on social media, most former STAYs loved it, and Eric Nam enthusiastically invited them onto his podcast. 

“So, guys, that made headlines, didn’t it? Rumors say you even got engaged.”

“We did.” Chan rubbed Minho’s shoulder which the listeners of the podcast wouldn’t be able to see while Minho showed Eric his ring. Showing off his ring was one of Minho’s favourite hobbies at this point.

“I honestly love it, care to tell us what’s going on?”

“Well… it’s a long story,” Chan said.

“Do tell. How did this all start?” Eric’s eyes sparkled with curiosity.

“We’re not quite sure.” Minho still had a strong accent but his English had improved a lot over the years. “But like everything in Stray Kids it probably started with Chan…”

**Author's Note:**

> See what I did there? I made a circle! Hehe


End file.
